The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced Nov. 23 the completion of $750,000 in safety improvements at the Kaaterskill Wild Forest in the Catskill Forest Preserve. The DEC just installed a 115-foot hiking bridge spanning Spruce Creek and connecting the hamlet of Haines Falls to the Escarpment trail and North/South Lake campground, part of a new 1.8-mile trail there. The area includes the Kaaterskill Falls, where two hikers have died this year, and others have recently. In 2015 the Department of Environmental Conservation closed the area near the falls for $450,000 in safety improvements. The scene there is also immortalized in Hudson River School paintings and Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle.”